A series of experiments designed to elicit early forms of symbolic and imaginative behavior, non-verbal as well as verbal, will be performed. Decisive cognitive developments during the second year of life include the emergence of speech, concept formation and imaginative play. These and related cognitive advances have in common that they require the capacity for representation, i.e. the ability to separate a signifier from the thing or event being signified. It is agreed that thought and symbolic activity derive from action. However, the transition from body action upon things and in space to symbolization has not been empirically studied, though theories abound. Early cognitive development is an issue of more than academic interest. Infant day-care and parent education programs build their content on current knowledge of these learning processes, and about the experiences that foster them. The proposed research will focus on the efficacy of three different environmentally provided ways of teaching symbolic representation to the young. They are in our culture (and in literate societies throughout the ages) (1) pictures, (2) toys representing familiar objects, and (3) words and gestures. We expect to demonstrate the different role each of these symbolic systems plays in supporting the development of early cognitive development, and thereby to improve the use of pictures, toys and words in early childhood education.